And that's why I just ordered one. It feels weird to have a 25 buck pedal that in theory could serve as the only pedal I need if I just need a few clean tones at hand. It should arrive between the 24th and 29th but it's AliExpress and my first order there ever, so we'll see how accurate the delivery time is. I'm really curious to see what they can make for the price.
Mine arrived last week. Didn't get a chance to play with it till today, but I can only echo what's already been said by others. It's a great little box for the price. And I do mean little! It's about 2/3 the size of a regular pedal (I used my 60B+ for comparison) and does everything it promises it does.
I did a few testruns by simply copying current EQ settings from my other pedals and in some cases their corresponding IR's. For the life of me, I cannot tell the difference between the 2 through my DAW or through headphones. The EQ and the shelves are as responsive as can be expected and it's all 100% noise free.
The HPF and LPF knobs work well too, even if I'd like them to be a bit larger. As said by others, it can be a bit slow in updating, but the results were clear and noticeable. In fact, I kinda liked the delay, as I found it easier to hear the difference.
And yes, it has a LOT of volume on tap on the headphones. Oh, my goodness. Fair warning: if you are playing around with it on your PC to import IR's and adjust the EQs and listen through the onboard headphones output, mute your windows sounds. Really. If you receive a notification from a windows program while you're toying with the pedal, you'll get a heart attack from the volume increase. Windows 10 seems to treats it as an external speaker in this configuration. I'm not sure if I can change that but during the tests it was easier to just mute windows. I'll keep playing with it.
The windows app is nothing special, but works well. The IOS app works well too on my iPad. You may need to play around with Q settings if you're not used to having access to that feature, but that's all really. I made a system backup of the pedal before I started playing with it in fear of losing the default IR's, but as it turns out I didn't have to. Resetting to Factory defaults restores all the original IR's. I know that's expected, but not every cheap pedal does it. I also like that I can save EQ settings separately from an entire preset and they can be recalled on other presets.
I do have an issue with connecting to an iPhone with an older IOS. For some reason I haven't identified yet, it won't connect to IOS 16.7.11 on my IPhone X. I keep getting connect errors. It's a bit of a bummer, but no real loss as that phone gets replaced soon, but I thought I'd mention it in case people have similar issues. It does fine on the current IOS though. I tested it with an IPhone 12 with the current OS and it connected instantly. I'll keep playing with it and see if I can identify and/or fix the problem.
As for the IR's it comes with, I only played with the bass cabs so far. The onboard Ampeg's better than I expected. It's almost identical to the one I already have, but it's a bit brighter sounding than mine is. I think I can find a use for both. I also like the Studio, but found the other cabs less interesting during the tests. I will try the AG with my prog band though. It might fit there better than listening to it by itself. I have yet to play with the guitar ones, but that'll come eventually. I'm just getting it ready for rehearsal tomorrow for the live test.
Haven't tested the DI yet. That'll come tomorrow at rehearsals as most of my gear's in the rehearsal room at the moment. I'll report back on that, but I don't really expect any issues after what I've seen and heard so far.
As it is now, this little box performs beyond expectations for what you pay for it. No matter if you just need an always-on HPF/LPF pedal, an IR loader, a parametric EQ, a simple but effective DI box (again, assuming there's no issues with it), or just something to play through with headphones, this box does it all and it is certainly worth the price.
As always, YMMV.
